Best of
European-History

1965

The Fall of Constantinople 1453


Steven Runciman - 1965
    The city's plight had been neglected, and negligible help was sent in this crisis. To the Turks, victory not only brought a new imperial capital, but guaranteed that their empire would last. To the Greeks, the conquest meant the end of the civilisation of Byzantium, and led to the exodus of scholars stimulating the tremendous expansion of Greek studies in the European Renaissance."... an excellent tale, full of suspense and pathos... He [Sir Steven Runciman] tells the story and, as always, tells it very elegantly."- History"This is a marvel of learning lightly worn..."- The Guardian

The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914


Barbara W. Tuchman - 1965
    Tuchman brings the era to vivid life: the decline of the Edwardian aristocracy; the Anarchists of Europe and America; Germany and its self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; Diaghilev’s Russian ballet and Stravinsky’s music; the Dreyfus Affair; the Peace Conferences in The Hague; and the enthusiasm and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized by the assassination of Jean Jaurès on the night the Great War began and an epoch came to a close.

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945


William Sheridan Allen - 1965
    Beginning at the end of the Weimar Republic, Allen examines the entire period of the Nazi Revolution within a single locality.Tackling one of the 20th century's greatest dilemmas, Allen demonstrates how this dictatorship subtly surmounted democracy and how the Nazi seizure of power encroached from below. Relying upon legal records and interviews with primary sources, Allen dissects Northeim, Germany with microscopic precision to depict the transformation of a sleepy town to a Nazi stronghold. In this cogent analysis, Allen argues that Hitler rose to power primarily through democratic tactics that incited localized support rather than through violent means.Allen's detailed, analysis has indisputably become a classic. Revised on the basis of newly discovered Nazi documents, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945 continues to significantly contribute to the understanding of this prominent political and moral dispute of the 1900s.

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71


Alistair Horne - 1965
    People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and invention. But suddenly France, not least to the disbelief of her own citizens, was gripped in the vice of the Prussian armies and forced to surrender on humiliating terms. Almost immediately Paris was convulsed by the savage self-destruction of the newly formed Socialist government, the Commune.In this brilliant study of the Siege of Paris and its aftermath, Alistair Horne researches first-hand accounts left by official observers, private diarists and letter-writers to evoke the high drama of those ten tumultuous months and the spiritual and physical agony that Paris and the Parisians suffered as they lost the Franco-Prussian war.'Compulsively readable'  The Times'The most enthralling historical work'  Daily Telegraph'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the civil war that still stirs the soul of France'  Evening StandardOne of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland


G.W.S. Barrow - 1965
    Professor Barrow describes the dazzling and tragic career of William Wallace, the English military occupation of Scotland that was its consequence, and the emergence of Robert Bruce as the centre of Scottish resistance. The author pieces together from the surviving evidence a vivid and almost day-by-day account of Bruce's daring tactics, his crowning at Scone in March 1306, his defeat by the English three months later, and his life as a fugitive.

Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution: Revisited


Christopher Hill - 1965
    In addition to the text of the original, Dr Hill provides thirteen new chapters which take account of other publications since the first edition, bringing his work up-to-date in a stimulating and enjoyable way.

The Art of Victory: The Life and Achievements of Field-Marshal Suvorov, 1729-1800


Philip Longworth - 1965
    Stalin renovated Suvorov's reputation by borrowing his title, the unprecedented rank ""Generalissimo of the Russian Army,"" and by incorporating Suvorov's image into propaganda posters depicting himself. Longworth demonstrates that Suvorov is quite capable of standing magnificently upright in history without Stalin's aid. Coming from a rather middle-class family at a time when wealthy young aristocrats dominated the officer class, Suvorov rose slowly; he did not achieve his greatest eminence until nearly seventy. Nor did he ever really lose touch with the common footsoldier. As a tactician, he broke every rule and abandoned classical strategy in favor of loose organization on the field that allowed for fluid adaptation to events. When slow, deliberate plodding of troops was considered absolutely necessary, he instead struck like a mongoose. He was the bane of fellow officers, and was indeed a vain, impish eccentric...An absorbing portrait of a quixotic pragmatist who never lost a battle.

Greece in the Bronze Age


Emily Vermeule - 1965
    Her vision is fresh, and her writing never lacks verve. Her coverage of the subject is thorough, spacious, and fully up to date. Among scholars, some of her judgments will undoubtedly provoke discussion; but all readers will welcome the excellence of her documentation". -- C. Wilfrid Scott-Giles, Times Literary Supplement

The G. I. Journal of Sergeant Giles


Henry E. Giles - 1965
    

The Ardennes: The Battle of the Bulge


Hugh M. Cole - 1965
    This offensive was called Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) by the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). It was officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army, but it is known to the general public simply as the Battle of the Bulge.

The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology


Fritz Stern - 1965
    By analyzing the thought and influence of three leading critics of modern Germany, this study will demonstrate the dangers and dilemmas of a particular type of cultural despair. Lagarde, Langbein, and Moeller van den Bruck-their active lives spanning the years from the middle of the past century to the threshold of Hitler's Third Reich-attacked, often incisively and justly, the deficiencies of German culture and the German spirit. But they were more than the critics of Germany's cultural crisis; they were its symptoms and victims as well. Unable to endure the ills which they diagnosed and which they had experienced in their own lives, they sought to become prophets who would point the way to a national rebirth. Hence, they propounded all manner of reforms, ruthless and idealistic, nationalistic and utopian. It was this leap from despair to utopia across all existing reality that gave their thought its fantastic quality.

The Crescent & the Rose: Islam & England During the Renaissance


Samuel Claggett Chew - 1965
    

Louis XIV


Philippe Erlanger - 1965
    With a novelist's elegant language and psychological insight, Erlanger portrays the Sun King through the decades, showing the crucial effect of a childhood filled with neglect and humiliation, and vividly depicting the King's spectacular style of leadership. "A brilliant, subtle portrait."--Le Monde. "The best work of history written in France for a century." --Le Figaro.